Eco Holiday Asia

Volunteering as a holiday

A holiday is always an adventure, Something to look forward to. Something that makes work seem worthwhile.

So why not turn your holiday into an actual adventure?

The concept of voluntourism is to use your holiday and to make it beneficial to the places where you visit. A beach for getting a tan on is just a beach for getting a tan on but assisting a local rural community learn English, computing, healthcare or just about what your culture is like is so much more redeeming and grants you access to areas you would never normally see.

The great thing about these types of trip is that they look great on any resume, bring a real sense of worth and achievement to those who undertake them and provide a great network of like-minded people from all over the world as contacts and potential friends for the future.

Volunteering in far off lands is a safe and worthy use of your vacation time. Staying in a homestay, eating with a local family, teaching at the local school, grafting with eco-projects or helping with cultural events and socialising with local people on equal terms all add an of of magic that you cannot get from tourguides, travel books or websites.

According to the Travel Industry Association of America, more than 55 million Americans have participated in a volunteer vacation, and about 100 million more are considering taking one. It’s a very good use of your time and money and truly helps build communities from the ground up. You don’t even have to leave your own country to help. You can work with a local organisation and aid communities near to your location or you could fund raise and build bridges between people far away and people closer.

You may wish to do it as a stand alone holiday in itself or you may wish to do a week of this and then a week of well earned relaxation by a pool.

There are many NGOs and charities in the world that could benefit from your time with them and the people you will meet will fill your heart with a renewed vigour for continuing your hard efforts to aid them.

For more on information on what voluntourism is, how to aid rural communities in developing nations or for ideas on how to fund raise to help one of the many organisations available I’d recommend searching Idealist.org or allforgood.org to see the many varying differences in them.

I found an NGO that I liked and volunteered with them in Northern Thailand, a region known as Isaan. They are called Mundo Exchange and originally hail from Oregon, USA. There I helped build mud huts from local materials to assist in environmentally friendly housing, visited a local orphanage and played with the children there during the Songkraan festival, Spoke with Buddhist monks and nuns in a remote retreat and found out about the naga and other mystical creatures like the asura, visited my host Prayoon’s home town which was a small farm in the middle of nowhere, cooked Thai and Isan speciality dishes with another host Nalirat and helped create part of a culture centre where the local community have a place to teach old traditions such as pottery and weaving to the next generation.

It was a whirlwind of activity and certainly had me off my feet in more ways than one. Seeing the divide between the developed West and the Developing South blew me away as well as keeping up with the many important projects that they work on. There were many other things that they assist with such as elephant welfare, local handicraft traders, local museums and healthcare projects but sadly I didn’t have the time to see them all.

I hope to pass through there again sometime soon and do some more good work with all the people of Thailand’s poorest region.

It was a great experience inbetween my travels around South East Asia and one I’d recommend to all. I’ve seen many other organisations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and other areas of Thailand such as Chiang Mai and Chaing Rai many of whom I would say do very worthwhile work and could benefit from people to visit them and give their time and donate some money for their amazing efforts.

So before booking an adventure holiday or beach resort – why not investigate the possibility of contacting an organisation which will give you a superb time and will benefit those who don’t have much by way of ability or opportunity. Email them, read what others have to say about them on Facebook or forums and consider trying something you haven’t done before but which you will probably get addicted to.

If anyone happens to be in the North Thailand region and wishes to visit Mundo Exchange then please visit their website and have a chat with them about what you could offer each other.

About the Author

I’m a traveller who explores the aspects of humanity and culture both of indigenous people and those who travel to visit them. It’s really fulfilling to see how nice people are to each other when times are hard and it always surprises me how good we are by default in hard circumstances.

I hope to write about my experiences around SEA and share them with people who might find them of some use.

I have to give a shout out to Mundo Exchange for their volunteering projects in Thailand as they deserve it.

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